Impact Lab Coordinator
Kanani Koster
Kanani Koster is the Impact and Acquisitions Manager for Collective Eye Films. She has spoken on numerous panels on race, diversity and representation in film. Kanani is the 2020 Oregon Made Film Grant winner for the docu-short, Any Oregon Sunday, and a 2020 Portland Arts Museum Re:Imagined Artist recipient. She has worked in the marketing and outreach department for both Seattle International Film Festival and the Northwest Film Center. As the Impact Manager for Collective Eye she has implemented campaigns for Personhood: Policing Pregnant Women in America and other catalogue films focusing on community driven social change and partnerships with notable organizations like ACLU and NAPW.
Faculty Lead
Emily Hong
Emily Hong is a Korean American visual anthropologist and filmmaker based in Philadelphia. Emily is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Visual Studies at Haverford College, a co-founder of Ethnocine and Rhiza Collectives, and a Leadership Team member of the Asian American Documentary Network. Informed by her experiences as a multiracial immigrant with ancestors on both sides of the colonial equation, her work seeks to challenge the colonial legacies of anthropology and documentary filmmaking by creating space to honor non-Western ways of knowing and being. Emily’s short films GET BY (2014), NOBEL NOK DAH (2015), and FOR MY ART (2016), have explored solidarity and labor, womanhood and identity in the refugee experience, and the gendered spectatorship of performance art, respectively. Her current feature project ABOVE AND BELOW THE GROUND features indigenous women and punk rock pastors leading an environmental movement in Myanmar. Emily’s work builds on over fifteen years of experience facilitating cross-cultural organizing and campaigns with grassroots social movements in Asia and the US with a focus on indigenous rights, environmental and economic justice. She has received support from the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation, Center for Asian American Media, Bertha Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, and the Gotham Film & Media Institute.
Hurford Center & VCAM Project Liaison
James Weissinger
James Weissinger (he/him) is the Associate Director for Haverford College’s John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities and Operations Manager for the College’s VCAM (Visual Culture, Arts, and Media) facility. Over the past fifteen years, he has supported and helped develop a number of new initiatives at the Center with a particular focus on interdisciplinary arts, including the Tuttle Creative Residencies Program, the Student Arts Fund, Philadelphia Area Creative Collaboratives, and Summer DocuLab. He most recently served on the lead team for the College’s VCAM building project and helped develop and realize the Center’s Pew Grant-winning project, The Contest of the Fruits. James is a 2006 graduate of Haverford.
Hurford Center Program Manager
Kelly Jung
Kelly Jung is the Program Manager for Haverford College’s John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities. In her role, she oversees the development and coordination of programs including the Summer Internship program, Mellon Post-Doctoral fellowship, and Student Arts Fund. She previously served as the post-baccalaureate fellow for the Hurford Center and collaborated with faculty and students to promote cross-disciplinary projects, with a particular focus on exhibitions and programming in the new Visual Culture, Arts, and Media (VCAM) facility. Kelly also previously volunteered at Asian Arts Initiative’s Youth Arts Workshop as a teaching assistant.
A-Doc Working Group Team
Gerry Leonard
Gerry Leonard (he/him) is an impact strategist and organizer from Jakarta, Indonesia and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He is the Director of Filmmaker Services and Impact at Working Films, an organization that leverages the power of documentary film and storytelling as a resource for social justice movements. He directs Working Films’ Docs in Action program that annually grants finishing funds to makers of short documentaries, and their Impact Kickstart program that provides impact programming and seed funding (Unapologetic, Duty Free, Little Sallie Walker, Fire Through Dry Grass, Bring Her Home). Gerry brings into the field of narrative shift and culture change, a background in community organizing — blending his experience in grassroots movement building and policy advocacy towards collective action and liberation. Before joining the Working Films team, Gerry worked on issues of food justice, voting rights, and police accountability. His leadership on a number of coalitions and boards have led to policies to reduce racial profiling within the carceral system and collaborative funding opportunities for equitable and just community leadership. He currently serves on the Leadership Team of the Asian American Documentary Network (A-DOC) and the Advisory Board for OPEN DOORS.
Lailanie Gadia
Based in Los Angeles, CA, Lailanie Gadia is a Filipina-American from Guam. She is Manager of the Asian American Documentary Network, where she has helped produce A-Doc’s Storytelling Initiative – 2020’s #AsianAmCovidStories microdocs, 2021’s #AsianAmResilience microdocs and 2022’s #AsianAmResilience shorts. She assists with fiscal sponsorships at Visual Communications, home to the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival. She is an Associate Producer on Tadashi Nakamura’s documentary feature, THIRD ACT, about his father, Robert Nakamura, the “Godfather of Asian American Media.” She has produced several narrative shorts including Dive Bar, which is airing onboard Alaska Airlines flights. She is concurrently a financial professional who values financial wellbeing and is part of the LEAP x American Express Impact Cohort Class of 2022. She is a proud alumna of Loyola Marymount University where she graduated with a B.A. in Economics with minors in Business and Asian Studies. You can find Lailanie at meetlailanie.me or Instagram at @itslailanie.
Rahi Hasan
Rahi Hasan (they/them) is a formerly undocumented dancer, documentary filmmaker, cultural organizer, and impact strategist challenging power on all fronts to create space for healing and radical imagination. They immigrated to Queens, New York from Dhaka, Bangladesh before moving to Durham, NC. Rahi is a Firelight Media Impact Producer fellow alumni, co-founder and co-leader of Undocumented Filmmakers Collective and Art Asylum. As the Strategic Advisor for International Initiatives at Dhaka Doc Lab, Rahi is supporting South Asian filmmakers to get access to the tools they need to speak truth to power.
Cecilia R. Mejia
Cecilia R. Mejia is a second-generation Filipino-American born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She has worked for over a decade in development for nonprofit organizations, including NGOs at the United Nations. She has a master’s degree in Public Administration and Affairs. She’s worked with grassroots organizations focusing on underrepresented communities. Cecilia has produced a number of films focusing on critical social impact issues. She’s the lead producer of the award-winning, Sony-acquired, feature film Yellow Rose, a Social Impact Producer of the award-winning doc Call Her Ganda and Co-Producer for Array Studios- acquired, Lingua Franca. She’s in development for a number of projects including the documentary series, Kapwa, with PJ Raval and the TriBeCa/AT&T Untold stories fan favorite, Johnny Loves Dolores. Cecilia is combining her passion for film and philanthropy with under-resourced youth as the Co-Founder for an arts-focused nonprofit organization, Art of Me. She is also on the faculty at NYU where she teaches Impact Producing and Producing. She is the owner of Remedias Productions, a production company focused on social impact storytelling and producing. She was recently brought on as the first-ever Impact Director for the Asian American Documentary Network.
